Management of the Nigeria Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) said it has begun the repair of its South Atlantic Terminal III (SAT-3) cable that was damaged on October 15.
The company, in a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday said it has invited a cable ship, named CS Chamarel, in conjunction with SAT-3 Network Operations Centre (NOC) of South Africa and Alcatel Marine of France to carry out the repair.
It was stated that the fault has been located to be at 46 kilometres into the sea and at the depth of over 1.3 kilometre.
Since the cable got damaged, services provided by NITEL to its numerous customers via the cable had been disrupted.
“We hope to fully restore the SAT-3 services in the country in a couple of weeks when the damage must have been assessed and repaired.
“However, in the course of the fault analysis and repair, NITEL’s customers on the cable system would have their services restored from time to time,” the statement quoted Kevin Caruso, NITEL CEO as saying.
Giving assurance on the repair of the cable, the statement signed on behalf of NITEL management by Sule Shehu, stated that “the cable ship has been duly equipped and on its sail to Nigeria from where the combined team of experts from NITEL, Alcatel and NOC charged with fixing the fault will depart to the exact location of the fault.
“With the exact location and nature of the fault identified and the equipment needed for its restoration mobilised, it will not be long before our esteemed customers begin enjoying the Sat-3 services again,” the statement added.